Perceptions of HR practices on job motivation and work-life balance: mixed drives and outcomes in a labor-intensive sector

Purpose: Based on regulatory focus theory and social exchange theory, this study explains how care service workers’ job attitudes, such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment and perceived organizational support, help form their promotion-focus or prevention-focus perceptions of firms’ HR practices.Design/methodology: A survey study of 709 residential care service workers was used to test the developed framework with structure equation modelling analysis.Findings: The empirical results show that the perceptions of HR practices in the British care service sector can simultaneously enhance workers’ job motivation and help to correct their work-life imbalance, which have different effects on workers’ job attitudes.Research implications: Perceptions of HR practices can create both promotion- and prevention-focused perceptions from the workers’ perspective. The mixed perceptions about HR practices trigger both perceptions of job motivation and perceptions of work-life imbalance that can then lead to different outcomes with regard to job attitudes.Practical implication: This study helps practitioners apply HR practices suitably, to certain types of employees in order to drive positive, rather than negative impacts. It is important for managers in the care service industry to take into account the conditions that determine the impacts of perceptions of HR practices on workers’ job attitudes when deciding to adopt HR practices.Originality: This study contributes to the management literature by providing empirical evidence of the critical role played by job motivation and work-life imbalance in the perceptions of HR practices and job attitudes link.